


A Crown of Ash

by Lightbringer34



Category: Kill la Kill
Genre: F/F, Implied abuse, PTSD, Satsuki needs a therapist, Sexual Hangups
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:01:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25248856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lightbringer34/pseuds/Lightbringer34
Summary: She endured everything her mother had done, but with the departure of the Life Fibers, Satsuki Kiryuuin now has to deal with the feelings she’s kept buried deep down since Ryuko arrived at Honnouji Academy.
Relationships: Jakuzure Nonon/Kiryuuin Satsuki, Kiryuuin Satsuki/Matoi Ryuuko
Comments: 5
Kudos: 62





	A Crown of Ash

Satsuki reflects on what she’s sacrificed to save the world. Things she doesn’t regret and things she does. Things she can control, and things she can not. 

Despite everything, despite, distance, time, and the certainty she was gone, Satsuki was still afraid of her mother. She knew it wasn’t her fault, that some wounds went too deep to ever truly heal. Instead they scarred or remained fractured, broken, and torn. She still had ceramic teeth from the beating her mother gave her on her own stage, when her failure had seemed nearly complete. Her left knee would cause her pain if the winter was harsh, and she had honestly chosen to ignore the laundry list of effects inner organ damage from that same fight would eventually cause her thirty years or more down the road. She was just lucky money wasn’t a problem. 

The real pain was all inside her mind. The irrational fear of her mother’s return had shown itself in nightmares that dragged her from sleep screaming herself hoarse. The worst part were the dreams that didn’t have her wake up screaming, but with an aching need between her legs that she alternated between ignoring for as long as possible, then finally giving in, only to start the cycle all over again. She preferred the nightmares. They made sense. They were easier to explain. 

The few women she’d seriously dated had tried to be understanding, had made the effort to get to know and love the real Kiryuin Satsuki. She had driven them away by accident or on purpose and two had even parted as friends, recognizing that no matter how much they could give one another, Kiryuin Satsuki needed to figure things out on her own.

The nightmares had driven one off, the moans had not. Satsuki had driven the second woman out herself when her burning desire had been noticed and taken as an invitation. 

Satsuki grimaced around her cup of tea. Neither of them had handled it well, particularly when Satsuki had embedded Bakuzan-gato in the mattress in a combination of instinct and blind rage. At least Nonon-

Satsuki stopped herself. Nonon was still her oldest friend and could still be something more. She knew the most, had seen behind the curtain to the true Ragyo and Satsuki Kiryuin before anyone, and she still stayed. But Nonon was one of the few people in her life Satsuki was truly, deeply terrified of hurting just as much as her own mother had hurt her. And so they remained simply friends, both women seeing what could have been and what still could be in equal measure. 

It wasn’t like Satsuki was a broken, isolated bird in her cage. She’d endured enough of that for a lifetime. She went to lunch with Nonon, on Sunday shopping dates with Mako and her little sister, and spent her days managing both the downszed REVOCS and her own art. She painted to relax and had tried a variety of styles, never settling on one, because she loved all the ways to express what she saw and felt. The limitless potential of a blank canvas, a life that stretched out into infinite possibilities.

Well, not infinite. There was the one thing. The thing she wanted more than anything, that made her laugh and cry and hope and curse the gods for placing it right in front of her every Sunday. She wanted Ryuko Matoi and Satsuki tortured herself over it what sometimes felt like every waking moment. 

The poisioned fruit from a poisioned tree, the last gift and curse Ragyo had bestowed upon her daughter was to give her back the sister she had lost, at the expense of the lover she had dreamed of. If Ryuko ever knew, she gave no sign and sometimes Satsuki was grateful for that. Mostly she wasn’t. 

She took a deep draught from her tea, tilting the cup to drain it and was vividly reminded of another deep pull on a small glass. The details hadn’t been important; a birthday, a celebration, a promotion. She remembered drinking too much, edging from drunk to the kind of plastered that results in blackouts and lost memories. She remembered talking to Mako, matching the girl’s chatter with equal rapidity. She dimly recognized the walls of her self-restraint crumbling, one by one. She remembers taking the last shot between them and pouring straight down her throat, bypassing her tongue entirely. The burn made her cough, but gave her the liquid courage to be the real Satsuki Kiryuin, even more naked than the night she’d caught her Inumouto falling from the heavens. She’d said something and Mako had laughed. She’d said something else and Mako’s expression turned to confusion and something that might have been betrayal and might have been fear. They both looked down the bar to see Sanageyama and Ryuko in an arm-wrestling match and Satsuki had been about to stumble off her stool and walk over, about to do something so dangerously stupid and painfully necessary that she didn’t even care what the consequences would be.

That’s what love was, right? Emotion and stupidity and painful, wonderful necessity? 

Satsuki felt like she’d never known. She’d been able to ape it, to construct approximately the same feeling from a dozen others, but Satsuki Kiryuin wasn’t sure she’d ever truly experienced love.

Mako had stopped her. Taken her arm and shaken her head, mouth frowning and brown eyes tightening in a silent NO that dropped Satsuki into a bucket of ice water and hit like a a truck.

She’d stumbled outside, turned towards the bushes, and puked out what felt like all the toxins in her body. Mako was kind enough to hold her hair back, so when Satsuki was finished, only the bush looked as bad as the Kiryuin heir felt.

She’d had drinks after that night, of course. But never that many and never in that company. She was terrified of what might come out, if her mother might come out. But mostly she was just so deeply, deeply tired of it all. 

She was tired of herself. 

She was so tired.

——————

Ryuko found her in the library, hands curled around an empty teacup as a red and blue blanket covered her from the chill emanating from the window. She slept deeply, mercifully no nightmares or daydreams.

Ryuko picked her up effortlessly and carried her sister, bridal style, back down the hall to her room. Tucked in and safe, Ryuko took one last look back at the form already curling around the supportive pillow her back required.

Ryuko Matoi smiled the same smile Satsuki would give her when she thought her sister wasn’t looking.

“Love ya, Sis.”

She closed the doors and left Satsuki to her dreams.

That night, Satsuki had a new dream. She sat upon a throne of black swords, as her partner’s was red. Upon her head was a crown of ash to match a crown of blood. A thousand screaming faces shrieked at them in hate, but the smile Satsuki Kiryuin saw from her queen made it the best dream she had ever had.

**Author's Note:**

> Children who have been sexually abused can exhibit either no sexual desire at all or an overactive sex drive later in life. With time and therapy, some people can get over these feelings, some cannot. I wanted to write about how Satsuki would struggle with the aftereffects of Ragyo’s abuse and came up with something short.
> 
> There’s a moment just after Satsuki betrays her mother that stuck with me the most, where the audience has a first person view of Satsuki being brutally beaten again. It’s there for maybe four frames at most, but in between punches Satsuki holds her hand up in a silent plea for her mother to stop. It’s short and unnoticed, but it cuts deeply. How often, if at all, could Satsuki even make that weak gesture of defiance? 
> 
> Still, she survives, triumphs, and manages to thrive in spite of all the damage her mother did. It’s a testament to her strength, determination, and character that she came through Kill la Kill the way she did. As I said in my other KLK fic, the show is a tragedy hiding under the trappings of a shonen, which is what gives it narrative strength.


End file.
